Some current battery monitoring technology measures the global pressure in the battery, as well as other global variables such as voltage and current, as well as the temperature at one or a few locations in the battery system. While these measurements of the global state of the battery may provide information related to the operation of the battery, these measurements are frequently insufficient to determine the onset of a failure event in the battery. Battery failure is an inherently local phenomenon, where the electrochemical reactions that begin locally can rapidly accelerate leading to global failure, which can have potentially catastrophic consequences.